Human threats to product safety and integrity require alert sentinels
Threats to the safety and integrity of produce in all forms exist from the field to the kitchen. The enemies list most often includes bacterial and disease agents, but there is another type of potential hazard that walks around on two legs.
Humans can spread illness, tamper with the package, adulterate the contents inside and engage in food fraud. Although produce has not yet been involved in the types of highly visible cases as have pharmaceutical and other food products, fruit and vegetable companies should still take the threat very seriously.
How seriously?
“As seriously as if you want to be in business a month from now,” said Mark Van Ostenbridge, food safety director for Gregory Pest Solutions. “Because it’s going to take about four weeks, if things go badly, that your reputation will be ruined.”
With such a wide range of dangers all along the supply chain, the best strategy is to take a systems approach to protect your products against all these threats and have a clear understanding of the most likely sources of trouble.
Tampering
The infamous Tylenol poisonings of 1982 brought product tampering into the public eye in a glaring — and deadly — fashion. Since then, pharmaceutical firms with over-the-counter products have led the way in devising packaging that is difficult to alter. Food companies are stepping up as well.
The Tylenol case is an example of malicious tampering, where an individual places a poison into a product. Other kinds of tampering include recreational tampering, where someone opens a container in the store and conducts a little unauthorized sampling; and operational or professional tampering, which includes altering the date code of a product.
Another set of definitions describes packaging capabilities to deal with tampering. Of those definitions, the phrase “tamper proof” gets low marks.
“The unfortunate thing is that if someone is determined to tamper and cause harm, there’s not a lot that any of us can do,” said Tom Gautreaux, national sales director at Maxwell Chase Technologies, which specializes in absorbent food packaging, equipment and processes.
The preferred phrases are “tamper resistant,” and especially “tamper evident.” Consumers should be easily able to detect whether a food package has been broken into by observing a broken cap, seal or liner. One example is the use of plastic containers for salads that are sonically welded, closed and sealed.
The existence of these types of closing and sealing mechanisms is sometimes touted on the package itself, a development that dates back to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“The terms were avoided because no one wanted to plant in people’s psychology that it’s possible that somebody could tamper with the food,” said Kay Cooksey, a professor at Clemson University’s Department of Food, Nutrition and Packaging Sciences. “But after 9/11, everybody thought about how easy it would be to do that (terrorist attack) to the food industry and create a major problem.”
Packaging has evolved to include a device or some kind of component on the package that shows a breach. Ideally, such a device could not be easily duplicated. Each package should also have a consumer warning. Shrink bands are a frequent feature of produce packaging, and such a package would warn the consumer to not use the products if the band or seal has been broken.
“Once you snap the lid closed, you can’t get at the lid unless you tear off the strip on the back. That’s the nice thing about these clamshells. You have to break something to get into it. Then it becomes very obvious that if the seal has been broken, it may have been compromised,” Gautreaux said.
Pharmaceutical packaging can also include a logo or some other kind of visible design that would appear distorted if someone attempted to break into the package. So far, Cooksey said, this type of device has not appeared on food packaging.
Food fraud
Another set of threats to the integrity of food comes under the heading of “food fraud.” John Spink, director of the Food Fraud Initiative (FFI) at Michigan State University, said the problem includes counterfeiting, stolen goods, smuggling, data code tampering, adulteration, infringement of intellectual property rights and more.
In 2013, FFI was created to research and devise policies to prevent food fraud. The organization (http://foodfraud.msu.edu/) has been busy working with companies and governments in research and establishing policies and best practices.
Food fraud has been most visible in cases such as the horse meat-as-hamburger scandals in Europe. But it has been observed in the world of produce processing. In 2010, a California company was accused of deceiving buyers into purchasing tomato paste of lesser quality that was mislabeled as being of a higher grade. The company, SK Foods, went into bankruptcy and was subsequently acquired by another firm. Its CEO, Frederick Salyer, admitted to price-fixing and racketeering and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Regardless of the source of the threat, produce processing companies can take steps to bolster their defenses.
“We believe everybody should conduct a food protection vulnerability assessment,” Spink said. “This includes food defense (intentional attacks meant to harm) but also food fraud.”
Practical steps to take in this assessment include looking at previous incidents, both across the industry and those relating to your own operation, and studying recommendations from agencies and non-government organizations. FDA’s Food Defense Plan Builder (http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodDefense/ToolsEducationalMaterials/ucm349888.htm) is an example of a software program that walks users through construction of such a plan.
Taking a systems approach
If threats can present themselves throughout the entire supply chain, deterrence must take place along the entire path as well. The key, Van Ostenbridge said, is equipping managers and employees.
“You can’t do enough training, and that includes explaining to the employees all the steps that you are taking as a company to keep your products safe and wholesome. You can’t spend enough on surveillance in the processing plant. For produce, that’s difficult. Historically, you have had fields and open sheds where the work was taking place. But now more progressive companies are thinking about this and placing cameras on the processing line and where the finished product is. But you also have to think about upstream, too. You can have a state-of-the-art processing plant but the farm three miles away has no sanitary facilities for the workers,” he said.
Worker health should be addressed with a policy that includes a sign-off document that takes employees off the line if they are diagnosed with certain illnesses that could be the source of future problems.
“This is critical,” Van Ostenbridge said. “You can’t have a document that says ‘if you’re sick, don’t come to work.’ You have to spell it out, including the symptoms of these illnesses.”
The systems approach also means extra expenditures. Produce processors will need to assess the threat level and determine whether it rises to the level of needing to spend the money, especially given the demands of making a profit and satisfying shareholders and other investors.
“It could depend on the value add of the product,” Cooksey said. “You could convince someone with a high-value product that it would be worth it. But could you convince someone who sells bulk apples? I doubt that you could.”
One way to accomplish some level of defense with a system approach is to establish a robust track and trace system. This could be the alternative to making the package itself responsible for product defense.
“Maybe the better and cheaper way is having security in the supply chain and being able to track who has touched the package,” she said.
A no-cost way to get systems training in food fraud is available twice a year, usually in May and November. Spink and his team have assembled an MOOC (massive open online course) to provide an overview on food fraud for people new to the food industry or for those who need an update. Sessions this year are May 19 and 26 and Nov. 6 and 9. For more information, visit http://foodfraud.msu.edu/mooc/.
— By Lee Dean, editorial director
